an economics scrapbook

The face of the river, in time, became a wonderful book . . . which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it had uttered them with a voice.
-- Mark Twain

I first came across Gerald Celente while perusing the internet a couple of years ago. He was calling the United States “fascist” and warning of economic collapse. His views were so pessimistic and anti-establishment I was initially tempted to dismiss him as a rogue wacko. Upon further examination, however, there did seem to be an underlying plausibility to much of what he was saying and I decided to read more. I looked into his background. It turned out the man has been a very successful trend forecaster, business consultant and author since the 1980’s, having predicted among other events the 1987 stock market crash, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 1997 Asian currency crash and the 2007 subprime mortgage scandal. The Los Angeles Times called his company, Trends Research Institute, the “Standard and Poor’s of popular culture.” Praise and recognition of his work by a wide assortment of iconic sources such as the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and even Oprah Winfrey grace the home page of his company’s website.

Gerald Celente now predicts we are headed for what he is calling “The Greatest Depression.” He forecasts growing unemployment, social unrest and violence ahead, and warns the state of the economy is going to get much, much worse. In a new interview on Tech Ticker, Celente points to the demise of the middle class as being at the heart of the problem and believes the only way out of the situation will be for the US to restore its production capacity so wealth is redistributed from the super rich to the rest of the economy. He says we need to grow a new manufacturing base in fields that will profit and provide expanding production in the future, like bioengineering and green technology. “We went from a country that used to be merchants, crafts people, manufacturers… to clerks and cashiers,” he explains. He says the government is getting in the way of progress, because it is squeezing out the entrepreneur while all the breaks go to the biggest and wealthiest, and then the taxpayer is left holding the bill. “We the people are supporting people who build houses.” The government’s effort to create jobs with stimulus funding has amounted largely to wasteful spending on projects that won’t provide long term growth, and so there will be no meaningful employment created from it. Celente predicted in 2009 there would be no recovery, just a cover up. Now, as the stimulus money runs out we will see the economy continue to decline.

I highly recommend you watch the full six minute interview with Gerald Celente at the link below.

Tech Ticker, Yahoo Finance The Great Recession Will Give Way to the “Greatest Depression”
Interview with Gerald Celente
August 20, 2010http://video.yahoo.com/